ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 6, 2021

Amaya Finklea-Guity

Syracuse Orange

Postgame Press Conference

Louisville 72, Syracuse 59

Q. Amaya, obviously you played many more minutes than you've been playing for the rest of the season. What can you tell me about the fatigue? Did you guys feel tired? Did you feel fatigued today after the third game in three days?

AMAYA FINKLEA-GUITY: There was probably a little bit of fatigue, but we still came out with the mindset of trying to win and trying to play as hard as we can and play together, just as Coach said. Yeah, of course there was a little fatigue. We were down a lot of players, but we still wanted to come out strong.

Q. Coach Q said that Emily is the player that can kind of play all five positions. How have you seen her progress and grow to where she's progressed to, 21 points today?

AMAYA FINKLEA-GUITY: Yeah, Emily has always been a great player, and you could just see her progress year by year. She's been awesome for us. She's been very vocal. She's been encouraging. So she's been a good team player that we need on the floor and a good leader in that sense. Yeah, we're very proud of Emily. I think she played awesome this whole tournament, and yeah.

Q. Knowing you have almost two weeks to rest up now before your next game and the team should be closer to full strength, and given the performance that you just had the last few days here, what can you take from this tournament and confidence-wise moving forward here to the NCAAs?

AMAYA FINKLEA-GUITY: I guess for right now what we can say is that, when it comes down to adversity and toughness, to make sure that you always stick together and play as a team, I think we did play together as a team until the very end. Especially going into a big tournament like the NCAA, you're going to have to do the same thing.

So making sure that everybody plays together, that we're strong, we do all our assets and just keep it going that way and get the ball rolling.

Q. I know you guys just lost, but what's the feeling of the team right now going into the NCAA Tournament? How are you guys feeling?

AMAYA FINKLEA-GUITY: Right now, yeah, we're a little disappointed that we lost, but I think we're excited to see how far we can get in the NCAA Tournament, too, kind of come with the same mindset of trying to win and trying to get as far as we can. But overall we're very excited.

I think we just want to see where we are, kind of, in a sense. I think the ACC Tournament was a good contender. I think it kind of showed us that we could compete with anybody really until the end. Hopefully we can bring that same energy, same toughness into the NCAA Tournament.